Release the Kraken!

The letter K is a tricky one. So many words that have a K-sounding phonome in the beginning are actually spelled with C in English and it doesn’t help that in many cases the same word in my native language, Swedish, is quite similar but spelled with a K. I spent a lot of time going “K…k…camera! No… k…cats! Dang! K…computer! Cake! Coffee! Damnit!” before I picked a topic for today’s entry.

Today’s topic is: the Kraken! Well, really it’s monsters and supernatural beings in general, but I can think of a bunch of things to write about under M so Kraken it is. I really like monsters and mythological creatures, I always have! It’s one of the things that draws me to fantasy as a genre, the invention of beings that don’t exist in our world. I think a lot of people by now have gotten a bit sick of the current influx of vampires, werewolves and other beings in popular culture, but I have to admit I’m not one of them. I’m really enjoying the trend! I’m particularly enjoying that it seems to be getting more common to have TV shows or movies that are about supernatural things but are still largely character driven. See, I get bored after a while if characters are flat, no matter how many monsters they throw in, so I really appreciate shows that have a supernatural setting but also interesting, multi-dimensional characters. One example of this is The Walking Dead. I actually find zombies to be a super-boring monster, but I still really love that show because of how well it depicts people and people’s different reactions to the circumstance they’re stuck in (plus I love me a good apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic story).

Another thing I like about shows, movies and books with supernatural creatures is playing “compare the monsters”. Which monsters did they pick? How did they depict them? Which traditional features of the monster did they keep and which did they ignore? Did they invent their own monsters? If so, inspired by what? I find it super interesting to think of these question and to see how a particular creator/team of creators depicts a particular monster. In fact, I have been known to ingest a fair bit of crappy art (shows, books etc) simply because I enjoy “monster browsing”. I think this is also the reason why I enjoy some types of science fiction a lot: “compare the aliens” is a lot like “compare the monsters” (and, in fact, sometimes it’s exactly the same thing).

Oh, and as a shout-out because it doesn’t seem to be as well-known as most monster-infested shows I’ve watched: one of my favorite monster-filled shows is Sanctuary, which stars Amanda Tapping (better known as Samantha Carter of Stargate: SG-1). I really enjoyed that show for many reasons, the monsters being one of the bigger reasons. Check it out!